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Old 11-07-2016, 03:01 AM
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Chris R Chris R is offline
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Smile WSOC: The Keagin Collie Moment of an A10 Championship

Article: http://www.udpride.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29907

The transformation in the last 3 weeks is one for the annuls of time. And credit to the players. They improved. This was not smoke and mirrors today. They really were 7 goals better -- maybe 9-10 to be honest. Leedom was a huge conduit in the middle and worthy MVP. Could have gone to her or Kiehl. Everyone played 100% all out. No one took a play off even in the 90th minute. Even the late subs were taking pride in protecting the clean sheet.

Erin looked like the old Erin, playing to her size and physicality. Livingston was possessed like Linda Blair. We can talk about the crazy scoring numbers but defense is really the beginning and end of the story. The difference between this year's team and last year's team is simple: last year's team couldn't get a clean sheet in the A10 tournament when they needed one. This year's team got three. If you want to win a championship, you have to zip people up. And part of that is GETTING THE FIRST GOAL. We played behind for 2/3rds of the season always playing catch-up -- usually after the first 8 minutes! This weekend got out in front, stayed in front, and broke the will of the opposition. We broke their will because they were useless offensively against our TEAM defense.

Pestell, Byrne, Merritt, and Gries were aces back there all tourney. But they had help. The mids and forwards played D too. Kiehl was tracking back into the defensive third just to receive service from defenders to avoid giveaway clearances.

It was just tremendous soccer -- yet nobody really did anything technically extraordinary. It was high IQ, effort, and all players buying in. We did not get this buy-in until about 3 weeks ago. Why it took that long who knows, but it wasn't scheme (though that did help). Players just started playing better and to their ceilings. Stopped taking plays off, playing like wallflowers, and deferring to others to do the dirty work.

Did I think they could play this well? Probably not. But I thought they could play well. Well enough to win. But they first had to believe it for themselves. Late October they saw the writing on the wall and their legacy of sending Tucker off to the fishing ponds was not the ending they wanted to write. They flipped the switch and I give most of the credit to the ones on the field doing the running and kicking. Tucker couldn't make them do it. They had to want it for themselves first.
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13 UDPriders Offer Mad Props to Chris R For This Totally Excellent Post:
BeckysTXA (11-07-2016), Figgie123 (11-07-2016), fuz_forward (11-07-2016), jack72 (11-07-2016), John C. (11-07-2016), Lifelong Flyer Fan (11-07-2016), NorthernFlyer (11-07-2016), NovaFlyer (11-07-2016), soccerflyer (11-07-2016), The Fly (11-07-2016), tirebiter (11-07-2016), ud69 (11-07-2016), udisit19 (11-07-2016)
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